Hope for a New Day

[If] My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
—2 Chronicles 7:14

The societal ramifications of the “Lawrence v. the State of Texas” decision go beyond giving government approval for homosexual activity. The Supreme Court believed that implicit in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution is the right of every American to engage in whatever kind of sexual behavior he wants to engage in. And indeed, in 2015, in the landmark case “Obergefell v. Hodges,” the United States Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that the right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Some of you are thinking, “So what if homosexuals want to get married? Why is that a big explosion in society?” Redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships devalues marriage. Let me illustrate that. Let’s say that our society decided to be more inclusive of the color purple. So instead of using purple to refer to only things traditionally thought to be purple we are going to use “purple” to describe every color. An apple is purple. A daisy is purple. Everything is purple. Suddenly, purple has lost its distinctiveness. In a world where everything is purple, nothing is purple. It’s the same way with marriage. If you are going to redefine marriage to be more inclusive, why stop with two women or two men? Why not be even more inclusive and say marriage can be one man and three women? Who has the right to tell polygamists they can’t express their sexuality? Or what’s to keep a man from marrying his 13-year-old daughter? Or what’s to keep a woman from marrying her cat? Every time I bring up that argument, same-sex proponents say that’s ludicrous—but they don’t have a counterargument. Because in a world where everything is a marriage, nothing is a marriage. The redefinition and resulting devaluing of marriage has devastating consequences.

What happens to a nation that rebels against God and discards His design for the family? Sometimes God judges that society immediately and dramatically like He did in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. But other times, as in our case, there is a series of explosive choices followed by a delay and then a sudden and dramatic collapse. I am convinced we are living in the in-between time between these explosive wrong choices and the inevitable implosion of our country. But instead of allowing that realization to drive us to despair, it ought to fill us with hope. Because those of us living in America’s twilight need to recognize that after twilight comes the darkness, but after the darkness comes the dawning of a bright new day.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “When a Nation Implodes” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2011.

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